Dr Sally Spencer

Associate Director of Clinical Research

Personal Introduction

Sally is the Associate Director of Clinical Research for the Clinical Research Hub in the School of Health of Medicine and an Editor for the Cochrane Collaboration Airways Group based at St George's, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Affiliate of the James Lind Alliance. She is an external examiner for postgraduate degrees at the Universities of Salford, Hertfordshire and Southampton.

Sally was a graduate of Southampton University and subsequently undertook clinical research at St George's, University of London, before completing a PhD focusing on evaluation of patient-reported outcome measures in clinical trials. As a Senior Research Fellow she successfully managed a research methods group focusing on the applicability of patient reported outcome measures in clinical settings. This work largely involved collaboration with big pharma on the role of patient reported outcome measures in large-scale international trials. She then took up a lecturing post at Brunel University in West London, developing evidence-based healthcare and research methods teaching components in the School of Health and Social Care. During this time Sally co-authored several Cochrane Collaboration systematic reviews and undertook consultancy work for several pharmaceutical companies. She continued to develop her portfolio of research activities, including successful commercial contracts for the development of patient reported outcome measures, and has published her research in high quality peer reviewed journals. She took up her current appointment in 2010.

Her specialist areas of knowledge and expertise lie within the development and evaluation of patient-reported outcome measures in healthcare and in the undertaking of systematic reviews. She also has extensive experience of project planning and leadership and of cross-sectoral working involving commercial, public, and charitable sectors. Her major focus is on building cross-sectoral research partnerships for the successful acquisition of research funding, that in turn will establish a high quality clinical research platform across the North West. She also aims to embed patient-reported outcome measures in the clinical research landscape of the region so that '...putting patients at the centre of healthcare...' moves from an aspiration to an achievement.